During the past several years, the Atlantic Council has been running reports on how Russian cyberwarfare and disinformation have been working overtime to undermine Western democracies in general, and Ukraine in particular. While Ukraine has been the target of Moscow’s attention, recently its tactics have evolved and shifted to exploit civil unrest in the United States.
The United States today is in the midst of an existential crisis that is tearing the country apart at its seams. Much of the harm is self-inflicted, but a good part is due to hostile outside players such as Russia and China sowing discord. The civic unrest and riots that rocked major cities across the United States in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing were aggravated by a radical movement known as Antifa and its collaborator Black Lives Matter. Although a relatively small segment of the demonstrators, these groups have created mayhem, causing incalculable property damage well beyond their small numbers.